Leap of Faith
by Red Tigress
Summary: Danny pulls one stunt too many. DannyFlack friendship. Oneshot.


Does anyone else notice how Danny's practically being turned into a stunt man on the show as of late? Leaping across alleys, jumping on motorcycles...anyways, this is just a one shot of what might happen next time. Contains Danny whumpage. Naturally. I can't leave the guy alone.

Disclaimer: CSI: NY is property of CBS and I am gaining no profit from this work whatsoever.

CSI:NY

Danny ran, breathing hard. He could feel the sweat running down his back as his muscles boiled with the adrenaline that comes from being part of a chase. Behind him, he could hear Flack's harsh breathing. Around him, heating units on the roofs rumbled softly. Ahead of him, the two suspects ran, feet crunching into the rooftop.

The case had started two days ago. The body of Sheryl Williams had been found in her house, beaten and strangled. It had been one of the more violent scenes Danny, Sheldon, and Flack had seen, but sometimes messy was a good thing. The suspects had left epithelials behind on both the bat they used to beat her and the rope they used to strangle her. One of the suspects had been the girl's super, and she had overheard him making a drug deal. Fearing he had been compromised, he and his partner took it upon themselves to "solve the problem".

After they analyzed the evidence and found the superintendent's DNA to be a match to the epithelials on the bat, it wasn't hard to figure out who his partner was, seeing as he had a record already.

That had led Danny, Hawkes, Flack, and a handful of uniforms back to the apartment building, poised to make an arrest. The perps hadn't initially been there, but had come back when the officers and the CSIs were processing the apartment. Flack, who had been talking to a neighbor across the hall, had immediately spotted them and called out for them to stop. They had run instead.

Which is how Danny and Flack found themselves in their current situation.

Danny could hear Flack behind him rattling off his location and the situation into his radio. With it, he gave instructions for the rest of the uniforms they had left behind to meet them at the base of the building and cover all the exits.

Danny figured if he and Flack didn't catch these guys, at least they had a safety net. But Danny fully intended to bring them down himself. He prided himself on getting his man, and today would be no exception if he had anything to say about it.

In front of them, the suspects were running out of room to run. A small structure stuck out of the roof with a door in it, presumably leading to another set of stairs in the building. A few feet beyond that, was the edge of the roof.

As they ran, one of the suspects veered off to head towards the door. The other one kept on running.

"I got this one!" Danny shouted, pointing to the one still running towards the edge.

"Got it!" Flack shouted back and turned sharply to follow the other one through the door.

The suspect Danny was chasing reached the edge of the roof and put one foot on the ledge. He looked quickly back at Danny, then down again.

"No!" Danny shouted, but the perp had already jumped. Danny reached the edge and looked down. About seven feet below him, on the rooftop of an adjoining building, the guy was getting up, albeit a bit shakily, and as he did he continued to run forward. Danny gritted his teeth, but one hand on the ledge and swung himself over.

As he hit the ground, he rolled to lessen the impact. Stony gravel still dug into his skin, but he was alright. He rose to continue the chase.

The new building they were on was also narrower, and they were running out of space faster than on the other rooftop. Danny inwardly smirked when he realized they had already passed this building's fire escape, and he could see at least an eight foot gap from where this roof ended and the next building began. But Danny also knew he couldn't underestimate how desperate criminals could become.

This was it. The guy had reached the edge, and looked back at Danny with anger, fear, but most of all, desperation in his eyes. Danny slowed, and stuck out one hand. "Don't do it," he said, still breathing hard. The guy just shook his head, and breathed in sharply. Then he turned around and leaped. Danny sprinted the rest of the distance to the edge. The guy was now hanging from the fire escape of the next building, about six feet below Danny's level. Danny cursed. But if this guy could do it, so could he. And he had to hurry. The guy was getting away.

Danny steeled himself and stepped up on the ledge. Swinging his arms to gain momentum, he pushed off the ledge with his feet.

Danny sailed through the air, and tried to grab onto the metal fire escape. As his fingers wrapped around a metal rung, gravity pulled him down along with his momentum, and he grunted loudly as he felt a sharp tension in his arm and promptly lost feeling in it. His fingers loosened and uncurled, making Danny loose his only grip. Before he knew it, he was falling.

Pain erupted in his hip as he hit bounced off the edge of a dumpster. He tumbled the last few feet to the ground, a heap of dead weight, knocked his head on the pavement, and was out cold.

CSI:NY

Flack continued his pursuit down the last flight of steps. The suspect was only a few feet in front of him, and as soon as he opened the door to the outside of the building, he was tackled by no less than three uniformed officers.

Flack snapped the cuffs around his wrists as another officer read him his rights. He turned toward the nearest uniform that wasn't escorting the perp to the police cruiser waiting a few yards away. "Have you seen Detective Messer come out of this building yet?"

"No sir," the man answered. "But it's possible they might be on the roof of another building."

Flack nodded. "Ok. You take someone and look around the other side, check the fire escapes; I'll look for them in this direction." The man nodded and went off to locate his partner so they could begin their search. Flack continued down the sidewalk to the next building that was in the direction they had been running in back on the roof. He noticed the next building was built very close to it, with the roof set a few feet lower. He looked at the fire escape, but didn't see any signs that anyone had been using it lately. He sighed, and moved on. He'd have to find them soon. Where could they have gone?

Flack reached the edge of the building and peered down the alley between the two buildings. He was about to move on, when something caught his eye. It was a leg sticking out from behind a dumpster, and it wasn't moving.

Flack started to run towards it, hoping it wasn't what he thought it was. But deep down, he feared the worst.

He came around the dumpster to find Danny. He lay unmoving on his side, his left arm lying at an odd angle, and blood pooling beneath his head. Flack froze for an instant at the sight of his friend. He recovered himself quickly though, and knelt down to feel for a pulse on Danny's neck. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding when he found one. It was steady, but not as strong as he hoped it would be.

He tore his radio out of his coat and called for EMS. They confirmed they'd be there shortly, and Flack returned all of his attention to Danny. He made sure he was breathing, which he was, and tore off a strip of Danny's t-shirt to hold to the gash in his head. He'd buy Danny a new t-shirt later in apology, but he didn't think he'd mind seeing as how he was unconscious at the moment. However, there was so much blood, the cloth had quickly soaked through and Flack was forced to rip up even more of Danny's t-shirt. As he pressed it into Danny's scalp, his friend moaned.

"Danny?" Don asked.

Danny groaned again, but this time forced out a painful "shit" through gritted teeth. Flack couldn't help but smile at this, but he knew he couldn't relax yet.

"Danny, listen, you need to stay awake. I think you have some serious head trauma here-"

"Don't…say…" Danny interrupted.

"Listen, Messer, I don't have to keep your blood in your head…"

"Yes…you…do," Danny whispered as his eyes began to droop shut.

"Danny? Danny, come on, don't do this!" Don slapped Danny's face lightly, forcing him to open his eyes again. Don was fighting a loosing battle if the paramedics didn't get here soon. "Danny talk to me! About anything!"

"Arm's…numb…" he mumbled. Flack looked at the arm again. It was definitely dislocated. It would be a miracle if he hadn't broken anything in it. Flack looked up again. Danny had indeed fallen a long way. He wondered what else in Danny's body had suffered. Just then Flack heard sirens in the distance.

"Hang on Danny, the paramedics are almost here."

"Kay…" Danny whispered softly. Flack heard hurried footsteps of several people running in his direction.

"Over here!" he shouted. The two paramedics came first and immediately ran to Danny and began work. Flack stepped out of the way, but was still close enough to watch. Flack took the time to radio in that their perp was still on the loose, and to have some men search the area. They'd find him eventually, he was sure. One of the paramedics was wrapping Danny's skull and another one was attending to his arm, as a third man with a gurney pulled up. They stabilized the detective, and as they were lifting him to the gurney, Danny cried out in pain, and his good hand shot to his hip.

"Careful!" Flack said, not meaning to sound accusatory, but he was concerned for his friend. The paramedics ignored him and laid Danny gently on the gurney. He still clutched his hip, but his eyes were clenched in pain. One paramedic began running her fingers over it. "Possible fractured or broken pelvis…" she noted. They continued talking about his symptoms as they hurried the gurney back to the ambulance. Without even cleaning the blood off his hands, Don pulled out his cell and dialed Mac.

CSI: NY

Later it would be determined through fingerprints and the suspect's testimony (he was caught shortly soon afterwards) that Danny had tried to leap onto the next building after the suspect like he'd done before As soon as Flack found out though, he was furious. Danny's stunt had led to a severe concussion, a dislocated shoulder, some cracked bones in his hand and arm, and a broken pelvis. Luckily it was nothing that casts and minor surgery couldn't heal. Luckily.

Don's first visit to the hospital had found Danny too doped up on pain medications to be in much of a talkative mood. Two days later though, he found the detective itching for something to do. Flack strode in and sat in a chair next to the bed. "Hey," he greeted.

"Hey, yourself." Danny said back. "Look, I'm…sorry." Danny said, averting his eyes.

This made Flack look up in surprise. Out of all the things he had expected Danny to say, this was somewhere near the bottom of the list. "Uh…for what?"

"Well, I heard you were furious with me. For recklessly putting my life in danger and all that…but I thought I could do it, you know? I've done it before. Hell, I've tackled guys on motorcycles before. I just…wasn't thinking. And then you and your guys had to clean up after my ass. So...I'm sorry."

Danny's confession took some of the steam out of what Flack had been planning to say. "Well, yeah, it was stupid. And I was mad. But not about loosing the perp or anything. I was upset you needlessly pulled a stupid stunt like that. You really could have died, Danny. I've seen it before. I'm sure I'll see it again. But I just really hope not from you."

Danny nodded. He had seen it before, too. He knew he had got off with relatively light injuries considering.

"Look," Flack continued, "all I'm saying is I want you to be careful from now on. Think first, then act. Look before you leap, so to speak."

Flack noticed the anguished look in Danny's eyes. "Hey man, lucky for you, I think you'll be in the lab for a while with a broken hip." Flack smiled.

Danny grinned. "Maybe I can bring that dog back as my disability dog. That would drive the lab rats crazy."

"And Mac, I'm sure. Better not try it, buddy." Flack stood up to leave. "Hey, maybe when you get out, you can hang out at my place for a couple of days, till you get back in the swing of things. We can watch action movies and then you can see first hand how the stunt people do it, and read the little disclaimers about how not to try it at home."

Danny laughed. "Sure thing. Thanks Don," he said, genuinely grateful he had a good friend in the detective.

"Don't mention it. And in the future, leave the stunts to the professionals."

CSI: NY

A/N: Well, that's a wrap. Hope you liked it. Reviews are always appreciated!


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